Christmas Party

Every year the group of Moms, we call "coffee morning" get together and celebrate Christmas with our families.  It's become a bit of tradition really.  The past two years it's been held at at hotel, but this year we opted to do potluck at our friend Sarah's house.   To be honest, there was a lot of running around the week before and organizing involved, but it was all worth it.  We had a feast of turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, mulled wine, plus plenty of christmas baking-- all home made!

Also part of the tradition is the appearance of Santa Claus, which is definitely the highlight for Tyler.  We had a last minute "personnel" change, which caused a bit of scrambling at the end to find the costume, and a willing Santa. In the end, we had a wonderful Santa, who "ho ho ho'd" and handed out gifts to the delight of all the kids.

At the beginning of the week, Tyler wrote a letter to Santa with the help of mom of course. When I asked what he wanted to say, I thought his response was very sweet... "I want to say Happy New Year Santa..."  Well, mom explained that Santa needed some help with picking the right gift for him, so we did add "I would like an Ultraman Seven."  And lo and behold, that was the gift Tyler received... After unwrapping the present, Tyler pointed out a price tag (which Mom forgot to remove) "Look, Santa got this from Sogo!"  Hope he hasn't put two and two together.  =P

Had some bad luck and all my pictures from the Christmas party were erased... so here's a link to Sarah's Christmas Party pictures.  Hope everyone is enjoying the Holiday Season!!

http://picasaweb.google.com/sarah.buerkle/CoffeeMorningAndXmasParty2008?authkey=LmO3DW_ecCQ&feat=email#

Out Come the Ear Tubes

Tomorrow morning, Tyler is scheduled for doctor's appointment to take out the tubes in his ear.  The tubes in the right ear came out on it's own but the ear drum needs a little help to heal.  The left one is still in and no sign of it coming out.  Unfortunately Tyler won't let the Doctor reach in their with his tweezers to grab them, so Tyler needs to go under again....  Basically go through the same process more than a year ago when he had the procedure.  To make this as untraumatic as possible, we haven't told him he'll be going into the surgical room.

But today we had a wonderful day spent doing some Christmas baking at our friend's Sarah's house.  Making sugar cookies and gingerbread men.  The moms had as much fun as the kiddos decorating the Gingerbread Men and Women.  The cookies are for the Christmas party on Saturday (yup this Saturday.  A bit early, but necessary given everyone's travel plans).  Really looking forward to the event.  Being in Taiwan, you're not bombarded with the Christmas Carols playing in the stores, and Christmas decorations in store windows, or even having Thanksgiving Holiday to remind you that Christmas is around the corner.  So you really need to create your own little Christmas winter wonderland.

Here's a link to more pictures from cookie baking...

http://picasaweb.google.com/sarah.buerkle/CookieMaking?authkey=9Rw-GIqGaqc&feat=email#